Tag: bearing witness

Consider yourself, a passerby, passing an inn. Upon hearing much noise and merrymaking coming through, you peeped in and found with a little disgust, rowdy rantings with drunkards singing, arguing, fighting and gossiping, with some in torpor or drowned in oblivion gazes.

Affected by what you saw, without much reason to stay on, you moved along your journey – only to find more inns, in almost the same states! After more of this, you no longer have the interest to even peep in. Never once did you find one unoccupied. You became weary. Yet, you still had to move on as you could find no place to rest.

You are just an observer, a mere vagabond, a wanderer with no permanent refuge, looking at the occupants of the inns, finding no peace nor space, where you could finally come to settle. In some ways, you too, are slowly becoming to be like those occupants – restless, irritated, disturbed, tired and at times resentful of what is going on. Nevertheless, you prod on and on, hoping to seek but never to find.

But, what if, you were never a passerby in the first place? Never a weary wanderer, or a vagabond, but once upon a forgotten time, a House-keeper of all the many inns. The rightful Ruler of impeccable order, unperturbed by what is taking place and present to whatever happenings there are, uninvolved and unaffected by the activities. But somehow, one day, there came along one presence, Forgotten was his name, which, upon the first encounter, you fell under his spell. And in a temporary state of forgetfulness trance, it cost you to imagine yourself wandering aimlessly – like a dream, where happenings take place, yet you are tucked comfortably in the bed, never once moved away from it. And seemingly soon, without your care, the inns came to a state of ruin, where strange intruders of many kinds came to inhabit. Being rowdy, chaotic, unbecoming, they took over instead, having the inns as their party places.

Who are you? Who are “you”, really? What have you forgotten that makes you so deeply identified and associated with your mind? The happenings in the inns, like those comedians, drunkards, gossipers, dullards or skeptics are like happenings in your mind. Are you really the mind, the “happenings” that is taking place, where activities come and go like those comedians, drunkards, gossipers, dullards or skeptics? Or are you the ”Awareness”, the weary passerby, who occasionally took a good peep into the mind, only to find as always, desires and aversions, with restless thoughts and worries, at times sloth and torpor, and even doubt, plaguing, never at all any peace within. Sometimes you are totally lost in them; at times forgot to even notice them, and many a times you were seemingly like them.

Or, are you truly the Housekeeper of the mind? Whereby, perfect presence is given to anything that is coming through – seen as mere objects taking place – unmoved, untouched by their appearances. And “Forgotten” is just here to remind you of what has happened in that one ancient moment – of not forgetting to be present to him. That, you were NEVER the imagined traveler, NEVER the dreamer, with the need to travel through imagined time and having the weariness to peep in and out, finding unhappiness. Rather, you are truly in perfect presence and wakefulness to every moment of activity taking place.

Welcome, my friends, of days and years, and probably lifetimes forgotten, that the position of a Housekeeper is always You. The days of a passerby is over. Let not the rowdies, or the slayers, or even the gossipers trouble you. When you take on the Position, the house (mind) will surely be in order. The inns of your mind will be back into shape, glittering clean and bright, with heartfelt delight and loving warmth.

Take charge my friend, take charge, without needing to overturn or to intrude or even to control the mind, except reclaiming back your Reality. It has always been yours, briefly forgotten by a tiny spell, albeit a long forgotten one. A little mistake that only requires your Awakening. And the peek-a-boo game is no longer required. Welcome Home, my dear friend.

PRACTICE MANTRA: Begin again and again from non-knowing, in a state of total being, fully awake and bearing witness to what is already presented here.

I begin from non-knowing, in a state of total being, fully awake and bearing witness to what is already presented in the Now. Again I begin from non-knowing, in a state of total being, fully awake and bearing witness to what is already presented in the Now. And again and again I remember to begin from non-knowing, in a state of total being, fully awake and bearing witness to what is already in the Now. The cycle begins again, and again, and again. I do not leg go of the past, instead the past let go of mewhen I begin again to this non-knowing, in a state of total being, fully awake and bearing witness to what is here for me. This is what practice is all about.

What is presented to me in each moment is different, each Now is always New, and each New is a total fresh experience. In this consistent newness, I keep remembering to begin from non-knowing, in a state of total being, fully awake and bearing witness to what is here for me.

Understanding takes place between the space of the practice and the Now. This is where transformation arise, where wisdom culminates. Fire is not hidden in the match-stick or the box. Fire is conditioned by the meeting. Understanding too is the same. Understanding is not me or you. It is impersonal, a condition arising from the meeting of the practice and the Now.

When the practice mantra is not put forth, the mind habitually goes back to knowing, in a state of doing instead, totally unaware and unawake to the newness of the Now and thus unable to bear witness to what is here for me. The unawake state is blind to the freshness of the Now and what it sees are presumptions, judgments, conclusions from all habitual ideas and patterns of the past. What it sees now are color glass of perceptions. How could there be Truth?

Heedfulness is the path to the Deathless.
Heedlessness is the path to death.
The heedful die not.
The heedless are as if dead already.
– Buddha

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.
– Rumi

Meeting Myself

This blog is about the mind story – my intimate relationship with the mind. And the stories evolve around my own spiritual growth which includes my own shortcomings, observations and understanding.

Interestingly it was recognizing arrogance that propels me to look at spirituality from a different light, beginning from the Buddha’s teaching to other faith, seeing profound similarities in them. Arrogance swings me from one end of polarity to the other end, humility. And again, only in recognizing both ends was I able to come to my own balance state, the middle path. Both ends have extreme interpretations of good and bad whereas the centre has its understanding of both. The recognition I am talking about is wisdom in working, found in each and everyone of us, when we allow.

And my journey is still evolving and refining, bringing myself back again and again, consistently, allowing wisdom to unfold in me, from extremity to the middle path of non-judgment and non-violence, seeing the world as my own creation and definition.

May you find yourself in these readings and come into your inner peace and freedom.

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Quantum physics defies what Newtonian physics is all about. At the molecular level, the entire game changes. In fact it is totally in opposition to what is.

The same goes with the mind. The world I perceived outwardly is not exactly what I thought it is - a different set of rules reign within.